Johnson sent a threatening message on Twitter on Friday after his father, DISD assistant athletic director Goree Johnson, and brother, Madison High coach Roderick Johnson, were among 15 employees fired in a district crackdown on improper sports recruiting. He wrote, “I’m coming for you. I fear none of you.” He apologized for the message the next day.

Royce Johnson told The Dallas Morning News that he didn’t know why he was fired. “It really doesn’t matter,” he said. “The district ain’t what it used to be. It’s not the same district that I went to school in. It’s not the same district that I started coaching in.”

Johnson’s termination is the latest development in a recruiting investigation that began after the March beating death of Troy Causey, a Wilmer-Hutchins High School basketball player. Causey was living with Madison player Johnathon Turner, who has been charged with murder.

Among those fired Friday were basketball coaches from Madison and Wilmer-Hutchins and top officials in the DISD athletic department. School officials have not released a list of the 15 employees or the reasons each was fired.

As the district’s investigation continues, The News uncovered questions about one of the Madison coaches who was fired Friday.

Since 2005, at least 13 Madison students have been listed in DISD records with assistant basketball coach Tracy Flentroy’s address near the school as theirs. Dallas County records show that Flentroy has owned the house since 2005 and has listed it as his home address with DISD.

In an interview outside his house Tuesday, Flentroy said his niece has stayed there, but he didn’t know why district records listed the address for the 13 students. Some of the students’ records list apartment numbers there even though it is a single-family home.

Many, if not all, of the students were athletes who played for the South Dallas high school, including Admon Gilder, a current player who is considered one of the best guards in the country.

“His dad probably rented ... [the house],” Flentroy said, referring to Gilder’s father. “I moved to Mesquite and only moved back a year later.”

Gilder’s family lives in Far East Dallas, where he attended Gaston Middle School. His mother, Paula, hung up the phone Tuesday when asked how her son attended Madison even though they live in Far East Dallas.

Records show that the address on her 18-year-old son’s driver’s license matches the Far East Dallas home. That address was also provided to DISD when he attended Gaston Middle School.

According to Dallas County records, his family owns the home, and a car registered to the family was parked there Tuesday.

Gilder led Madison to the 2013 and 2014 Class 3A state championships. If the University Interscholastic League finds that he was ineligible to play for the school, Madison could lose its state titles.

In the 2011-12 school year, DISD records listed seven Madison students with Flentroy’s one-bedroom house as their address. The students included track, football and basketball players.

“Seven? I don’t know nothing about that,” said Flentroy, 46, who played football for Madison in the mid-1980s.

Flentroy said Tuesday that DISD fired him over allegations that he falsified student residency documents. He denies fabricating them.

In its investigation, Dallas ISD found that coaches and assistant coaches at Madison and Wilmer-Hutchins falsified residency documents for students, according to DISD officials familiar with the case. Four athletic department officials, including director Jeff Johnson, were fired because they failed to properly oversee the process for verifying addresses, the sources said. Wilmer-Hutchins coach John Burley was among those fired.

Flentroy said he never turned in false residency forms. He said he confirmed students’ residences by visiting the addresses they listed and looked for their textbooks, backpacks and pictures of them.

“We’d go to the houses and see if the kids had any belongings at the house,” he said. “We’d sign our name to say we’ve seen them.”

The mass firings Friday have reverberated throughout the North Texas high school sports community. The Johnson family — Goree, Royce and Roderick — had built an athletic dynasty in Texas high school sports. (Athletic director Jeff Johnson is unrelated.)

“People thought that we felt like we were out running things … but we never looked at it like that,” Royce Johnson said Tuesday. “We just looked at it like three sons, guys who looked up to their father and mother, and that’s what we wanted to do: be coaches.”

Royce Johnson, 42, won basketball titles with Kimball as a player, assistant coach and head coach. He won the 5A title in 1990 as a senior. He served as an assistant for his father on title-winning Kimball teams in 1996 and 1997. As head coach, he made seven trips to the state tournament, winning Class 4A titles in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Dallas ISD investigated Johnson after star basketball player Keith Frazier transferred there before the season started in 2011. The report found a “concerted attempt” by coaches and administrators to recruit athletes from other parts of DISD and surrounding school districts. Kimball won the state championship that season. Frazier now plays at Southern Methodist University.

“Not getting a chance to leave the way you want to leave, that’s bigger than everything,” Johnson said. “I knew the time was going to come. I wasn’t going to do this over 15 years. Just the whole ordeal — just for the program to go through this for these years … hate is still out there.”

Roderick Johnson coached Madison to Class 3A championship in his first season at the school in 2014.

While Royce Johnson didn’t say why he was let go, a message he sent Friday night on Twitter raised concerns with district administrators. He wrote, “You went at me which is cool, but when you go after my family. Lights out! Now I’m coming for you. I fear none of you.” He later apologized and clarified that the tweet was in reference to potential legal action he could take.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Riley, the DISD spokesman, said: “Our students need positive role models and not examples that promote violence or bullying behavior. Staff members who violate these expectations will be held responsible for their actions.”

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